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Today is my 32nd birthday. I have now successfully aged once again. Ph33r me. :)
In honor of this auspicious occasion, I decided to commit whole-hog to this interview meme that's running around like mad. Over the next few days, I'll be taking valuable time I should be using to work and blowing it off doing this, instead. :)
Today's questions are from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
whisper_jeff.
1) Do you realize how talented you are as a writer? I don't mean this
to sound like a compliment (though feel free to take it that way as
well) - I do mean it as a serious question.
Hmm. Well, I'll resist the temptation to merely blush and dissemble as I fidget with my clothes, and attempt to answer this without the whole compliment side of it.
Yes, and no. See, I know I write better than 75% of the people on the planet. Language is one of the things I'm really good at. Most of those 75% can kick my ass in just about anything else, so it's not as though I'm feeling especially proud of this accomplishment. So, to that extent, I know roughly where I fall on the scale.
But then, the answer is also "no." I don't suffer from writer's remorse, as I've seen it termed, because I really feel like I do the best job I can on any given thing at the time I write it (with one particular project in mind as an exception, but that was during the worst of last year and there wasn't shit I could have done about it, really). That being said, however, I feel I'm competent and servicable in my craft. I have no idea how this falls out on a scale of other published writers. I do know I haven't had a piece of fiction published yet aside from vignette stuff on a web site, and that I can't seem to execute plot to save my life, and I don't know how to fix it -- a serious failing for one who would like to have fiction published one day.
I am confident that I can meet the standards laid before me, but I have no confidence in my ability to excel, I guess. I have very few benchmarks I can use, as my writing career to date has failed to make even the most cursory mark on the consumer consciousness. I will never dazzle, I'm afraid, asprinceofcairo or Rebecca Borgstrom do, and I fear I'll never be able to break out of the gaming industry at all for lack of being anything more than a competent wordsmith. I don't mind being a competent wordsmith, mind you, but I can't help looking at my less than perfect wings sometimes and wondering what it would be like if I could really fly....
2) What sort of project would you love to write if given a blank slate
and total freedom?
Sweet Jesus. I honestly have no idea. I'd love to write a novel, really. I don't know if I could do it, but I'd love to try. As for a gaming project... hmm. I think I do pretty well with licensed properties (and I'm lacking any truly original ideas at the moment), so I'd like to do a game based in Stephen King's Dark Tower/Gunslinger setting. Alternatively, Stephen Brust's Dragaera. Thirdly, I'd go for Damar, Robin McKinley's sometimes setting. The off chance to actually meet any of them and have a good time would be enough to sign me up on the project.
3) How much is gaming a part of your non-work life?
More and less than I'd like. David's best and most useful coping tool is obsession, and it typically takes the form of games and game systems. There are times when it feels like I literally cannot get more than five words of conversation on any other topic. Therefore, it's sort of the glue that holds us together from time to time. This is not the best of solutions, but at least he's trying to share something with me.
Less, because I'd like to actually have a regular gaming group (probably one who could come over to my house, or one with other people who have children, so that I could find a way to make it all work out. I haven't successfully had that since I had children, and I miss it. I really need more social interaction than I get RL (read: almost nil) right now, and a group of friends with whom one can play games or watch movies and hang out is something I dearly, dearly miss. Whenever I move again, it will be somewhere I can have these things. I don't do well without them.
4) Who do you respect the most (and as with James, no cliche answers
like mom and dad)?
Heh. I'm tempted to answer with a quote from Elizabeth from Pride and Prejudice,
"I have few people that I love, and even fewer whom I respect."
I respect my friend, Trey, who has had God-knows-what happen to him, but has never used his problems as an excuse and has always found a way to keep them from ruling his life. I respect his wife, Nicole, for being the most together person I've ever met. Elissa reminds me a lot of her, and I think very highly of Elissa as well for very similar reasons. Both have been through their share of ick, and neither has done anything but grow stronger for it. I can only wish to ever have a tenth of their wisdom.
I respect Stephen King, for being the best damn wordsmith I know, not to mention overcoming all manner of ick in doing so.
I respect a lot of people for a lot of reasons, but they're way too numerous to list here.
5) Who would you strangle if you could do so without repercussions?
My husband's parents, for standing by and being too wrapped up in their petty little lives and sick problems to parent their children. They've never really acknowledged what they did, nor will they ever. They are incapable of it at this point, I'd imagine. If I lose my husband and my marriage, it will be directly caused by they shit they pulled and the shit they did nothing to either prevent or remedy, and every step my husband takes toward healing is one step closer to ending our relationship. I hate them both, because they've harmed the people I love, because they refuse to acknowledge it, and because in the end, I may very well lose everything I've ever wanted or dreamed of to their callous indifference and neglect. I would gladly see them both gone from the face of the earth.
*Note: I don't hate easily. I have never hated anyone else in my life. It took me years to hate them... it was not some overnight sensation. They've had to earn it, and earn it they have.
THE RULES:
1 - Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2 - I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
3 - You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
4 - You'll include this explanation.
5 - You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.
In honor of this auspicious occasion, I decided to commit whole-hog to this interview meme that's running around like mad. Over the next few days, I'll be taking valuable time I should be using to work and blowing it off doing this, instead. :)
Today's questions are from
whisper_jeff.1) Do you realize how talented you are as a writer? I don't mean this
to sound like a compliment (though feel free to take it that way as
well) - I do mean it as a serious question.
Hmm. Well, I'll resist the temptation to merely blush and dissemble as I fidget with my clothes, and attempt to answer this without the whole compliment side of it.
Yes, and no. See, I know I write better than 75% of the people on the planet. Language is one of the things I'm really good at. Most of those 75% can kick my ass in just about anything else, so it's not as though I'm feeling especially proud of this accomplishment. So, to that extent, I know roughly where I fall on the scale.
But then, the answer is also "no." I don't suffer from writer's remorse, as I've seen it termed, because I really feel like I do the best job I can on any given thing at the time I write it (with one particular project in mind as an exception, but that was during the worst of last year and there wasn't shit I could have done about it, really). That being said, however, I feel I'm competent and servicable in my craft. I have no idea how this falls out on a scale of other published writers. I do know I haven't had a piece of fiction published yet aside from vignette stuff on a web site, and that I can't seem to execute plot to save my life, and I don't know how to fix it -- a serious failing for one who would like to have fiction published one day.
I am confident that I can meet the standards laid before me, but I have no confidence in my ability to excel, I guess. I have very few benchmarks I can use, as my writing career to date has failed to make even the most cursory mark on the consumer consciousness. I will never dazzle, I'm afraid, as
princeofcairo or Rebecca Borgstrom do, and I fear I'll never be able to break out of the gaming industry at all for lack of being anything more than a competent wordsmith. I don't mind being a competent wordsmith, mind you, but I can't help looking at my less than perfect wings sometimes and wondering what it would be like if I could really fly....2) What sort of project would you love to write if given a blank slate
and total freedom?
Sweet Jesus. I honestly have no idea. I'd love to write a novel, really. I don't know if I could do it, but I'd love to try. As for a gaming project... hmm. I think I do pretty well with licensed properties (and I'm lacking any truly original ideas at the moment), so I'd like to do a game based in Stephen King's Dark Tower/Gunslinger setting. Alternatively, Stephen Brust's Dragaera. Thirdly, I'd go for Damar, Robin McKinley's sometimes setting. The off chance to actually meet any of them and have a good time would be enough to sign me up on the project.
3) How much is gaming a part of your non-work life?
More and less than I'd like. David's best and most useful coping tool is obsession, and it typically takes the form of games and game systems. There are times when it feels like I literally cannot get more than five words of conversation on any other topic. Therefore, it's sort of the glue that holds us together from time to time. This is not the best of solutions, but at least he's trying to share something with me.
Less, because I'd like to actually have a regular gaming group (probably one who could come over to my house, or one with other people who have children, so that I could find a way to make it all work out. I haven't successfully had that since I had children, and I miss it. I really need more social interaction than I get RL (read: almost nil) right now, and a group of friends with whom one can play games or watch movies and hang out is something I dearly, dearly miss. Whenever I move again, it will be somewhere I can have these things. I don't do well without them.
4) Who do you respect the most (and as with James, no cliche answers
like mom and dad)?
Heh. I'm tempted to answer with a quote from Elizabeth from Pride and Prejudice,
"I have few people that I love, and even fewer whom I respect."
I respect my friend, Trey, who has had God-knows-what happen to him, but has never used his problems as an excuse and has always found a way to keep them from ruling his life. I respect his wife, Nicole, for being the most together person I've ever met. Elissa reminds me a lot of her, and I think very highly of Elissa as well for very similar reasons. Both have been through their share of ick, and neither has done anything but grow stronger for it. I can only wish to ever have a tenth of their wisdom.
I respect Stephen King, for being the best damn wordsmith I know, not to mention overcoming all manner of ick in doing so.
I respect a lot of people for a lot of reasons, but they're way too numerous to list here.
5) Who would you strangle if you could do so without repercussions?
My husband's parents, for standing by and being too wrapped up in their petty little lives and sick problems to parent their children. They've never really acknowledged what they did, nor will they ever. They are incapable of it at this point, I'd imagine. If I lose my husband and my marriage, it will be directly caused by they shit they pulled and the shit they did nothing to either prevent or remedy, and every step my husband takes toward healing is one step closer to ending our relationship. I hate them both, because they've harmed the people I love, because they refuse to acknowledge it, and because in the end, I may very well lose everything I've ever wanted or dreamed of to their callous indifference and neglect. I would gladly see them both gone from the face of the earth.
*Note: I don't hate easily. I have never hated anyone else in my life. It took me years to hate them... it was not some overnight sensation. They've had to earn it, and earn it they have.
THE RULES:
1 - Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2 - I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
3 - You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
4 - You'll include this explanation.
5 - You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re:
Date: 2004-02-05 08:38 am (UTC)From:Sorry, missed that last one. :)